Receiver chosen to pursue assets of fugitive ex-banker

A federal judge has appointed a receiver to begin seizing the assets of missing banker Aubrey Lee Price and his companies.

Price, a former Bradenton resident who moved to Georgia earlier this year, has been charged with embezzling $21 million from a failed bank where he was a director and the controlling stockholder.

The Securities and Exchange Commission also has charged Price with fraud in connection with a $40 million investment scam.

He has been missing since June 16, the day he apparently boarded a ferry in Key West headed for Fort Myers. He told family members he planned to jump off and commit suicide, but law enforcement officials do not believe he killed himself.

The FBI believes Price, 46, may be hiding out in Southwest or central Florida, where he lived and worked for years.

U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten in Georgia appointed attorney Melanie Damian, of Miami, as receiver in the SEC's case against Price.

Damian will have the power to take over and control property, bank and brokerage accounts and records and to file lawsuits to grab assets.

Price and his companies still own at least seven office buildings, homes and other properties in Manatee County, a search of records has found.

A news report said Damian last week opened one of Price's safe deposit boxes at a Bradenton bank, which held more than 100 silver coins.

Price, who goes by the name Lee, lived in Bradenton for at least five years. He formed investment firms and bought and sold real estate. He sold his Bay Drive home in Bradenton for $833,500 on May 12, five weeks before he was last seen by his family.

His local businesses included Montgomery Asset Management in Sarasota and PFG Investments LLC, in Bradenton.

In addition to Florida, Damian says Price's assets may be located in Georgia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia and other countries. Price frequently traveled to Central and South America on business.

Williams reports to prison

Former Orion Bank CEO Jerry J. Williams has reported to prison to begin serving a six-year sentence, and some might think he lucked out.

Williams is doing his time in the Federal Prison Camp Montgomery in Alabama, a minimum security facility for male offenders located on Maxwell Air Force Base.

The 51-year-old former banker -- who once had private jets whisk him around Florida -- pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and making false statements to federal regulators. He was sentenced in June and given 60 days to report.

The 973-inmate FPC Montgomery was named one of the "Best Places to go to Prison" in a CNBC report earlier this year.

Alan Ellis, a criminal defense attorney for white-collar defendants, said in the report that inmates have access to a music room, pool tables and a craft room.

But he said the best perk may be the ability to work outside the prison camp; some prisoners are employed as gardeners and landscapers on the military base.

Ellis said one of clients worked as a landscaper at a general's house.

"The general's wife would invite him in in the afternoon for lemonade and cookies," Ellis told the show.

Prisoners also may take correspondence courses in business, psychology, art, music and foreign language offered by Troy State University.

But it is still a prison. Inmates are awakened at 5:15 a.m. on week days, with lights out at 10 p.m. Most are expected to work -- pay ranges from 23 cents to $1.46 per hour -- at such jobs as cook, dishwasher, maintenance, landscape, sanitation or laundry, according to the prison's handbook.

Meanwhile, Williams' legal woes continues to play out in federal court. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants him to pay $31 million in restitution, on top of the $5.75 million the judge already ordered him to pay.

The FDIC now says the failure of the $2.7-billion-asset Orion Bank in November 2009 will cost $884 million, far more than the original estimate of $615 million.

Naples-based Orion was a major lender during the real estate boom of the mid- 2000s in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Contact John Hielscher at 361-4875, fax to 361-4880 or email john.hielscher@ heraldtribune.com.